God is speaking about something immediate in this verse. It is not something He is going to do but something He does do, at this very moment. As faith continues to speak, God continues to give. He meets you today in the present and tests your faith. As long as you are waiting, hoping, or looking, you are not believing. You may have hope or an earnest desire, but that is not faith, for “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). The command regarding believing prayer is: “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). We are to believe that we have received—this present moment. Have we come to the point where we have met God in His everlasting now? A. B. SIMPSON

True faith relies on God and believes before seeing. Naturally, we want some evidence that our petition is granted before we believe, but when we “live by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7), we need no evidence other than God’s Word. He has spoken, and in harmony with our faith it will be done. We will see because we have believed, and true faith sustains us in the most trying of times, even when everything around us seems to contradict God’s Word.

The psalmist said, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). He had not yet seen the Lord’s answer to his prayers, but he was confident he would see, and his confidence sustained him.

Faith that believes it will see, will keep us from becoming discouraged. We will laugh at seemingly impossible situations while we watch with delight to see how God is going to open a path through our Red Sea. It is in these places of severe testing, with no human way out of our difficulty, that our faith grows and is strengthened.

Dear troubled one, have you been waiting for God to work during long nights and weary days, fearing you have been forgotten? Lift up your head and begin praising Him right now for the deliverance that is on its way to you. LIFE OF PRAISE

Oh, how great the temptation is to despair at times! Our soul becomes depressed and disheartened, and our faith staggers under the severe trials and testing that come into our lives, especially during times of bereavement and suffering. We may come to the place where we say, “I cannot bear this any longer. I am close to despair under these circumstances God has allowed. He tells me not to despair, but what am I supposed to do when I am at this point?”

What have you done in the past when you felt weak physically? You could not do anything. You ceased from doing. In your weakness, you leaned on the shoulder of a strong loved one. You leaned completely on someone else and rested, becoming still, and trusting in another’s strength.

It is the same when you are tempted to despair under spiritual afflictions. Once you have come close to the point of despair, God’s message is not, “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6), for He knows that your strength and courage have run away. Instead, He says sweetly, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

Hudson Taylor was so weak and feeble in the last few months of his life that he told a friend, “I am so weak I cannot write. I cannot read my Bible. I cannot even pray. All I can do is lie still in the arms of God as a little child, trusting Him.” This wonderful man of God, who had great spiritual power, came to the point of physical suffering and weakness where all he could do was lie still and trust.

That is all God asks of you as His dear child. When you become weak through the fierce fires of affliction, do not try to “be strong.” Just “be still, and know that [He is] God.” And know that He will sustain you and bring you through the fire.

God reserves His best medicine for our times of deepest despair.

“Be strong and take heart” (Psalm 27:14).

Be strong, He has not failed you In all the past, And will He go and leave you To sink at last? No, He said He will hide you Beneath His wing; And sweetly there in safety You then may sing.

In Hebrews 11:27, we read that Moses “persevered because he saw him who is invisible.” Yet in the above passage, exactly the opposite was true of the children of Israel. They persevered only when their circumstances were favorable, because they were primarily influenced by whatever appealed to their senses, instead of trusting in the invisible and eternal God.

Even today we have people who live an inconsistent Christian life because they have become preoccupied with things that are external. Therefore they focus on their circumstances rather than focusing on God. And God desires that we grow in our ability to see Him in everything and to realize the importance of seemingly insignificant circumstances if they are used to deliver a message from Him.

We read of the children of Israel, “Then they believed his promises.” They did not believe until after they saw—once they saw Him work, “then they believed.” They unabashedly doubted God when they came to the Red Sea, but when He opened the way and led them across and they saw Pharaoh and his army drowned—“then they believed.” The Israelites continued to live this kind of up-and-down existence, because their faith was dependent on their circumstances. And this is certainly not the kind of faith God wants us to have.

The world says that “seeing is believing,” but God wants us to believe in order to see. The psalmist said, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13 NASB).

Do you believe God only when your circumstances are favorable, or do you believe no matter what your circumstances may be? C. H. P.

Faith is believing what we do not see, and the reward for this kind of faith is to see what we believe. SAINT AUGUSTINE

I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.—Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut off. I called upon thy name, O Lord , out of the low dungeon. Thou hast heard my voice: hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry. Thou drewest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not.

Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High. I will remember the works of the Lord : surely I will remember thy wonders of old.—I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.